Embalmer Robert Girts sentenced to life in prison for poisoning his wife

View full sizeRobert Girts stood showing no emotion as he is sentenced to life in prison. PD/Dale Omori Writer:O'Malley Dept:Cty 6/03/93PD file photo

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Three days ago, Robert Girts shook with emotion while tearfully reading to a jury letters he received from his third wife, Diane. Yesterday, he sat stone cold as the jury found him guilty of killing her by spiking something she drank or ate with deadly cyanide.

Girts sat stoically, only blinking his eyes and tapping his right foot slowly as Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Pat Kelly read the guilty verdict, reached after six hours of deliberation.

Seated directly behind Girts in the courtroom, his mother, Betty Girts, sobbed quietly as Kelly sentenced him to life in prison.

On the other side of the courtroom, Diane Girts' family and friends hugged one another, crying tears of joy and sadness.

"I'm sad because this man has caused grief to every person he's come in contact with," said Diane's brother, Barry Jones of Salem, O. "I'm happy because the man who has caused my sister's death has been punished."

Jones noted that the conviction came nine months and one day after Diane's body was found in a bathtub at the Girtses' home, located on the property of Zabor funeral home in Parma where Girts worked as an embalmer.

"We got so immersed in this (aggravated murder case), we've never grieved the loss of my sister," Jones said.

The verdict was also welcomed by the family of Girts' first wife, Mary Theresa (Terrie) Morris, who suspects that Girts poisoned her as well.

Morris died 15 years ago at the age of 25 and was buried in a Youngstown mausoleum without an autopsy. Her death certificate listed a heart disorder as the cause of death.

In February, authorities exhumed Morris' body and took it to the Cuyahoga County coroner's office where an autopsy and toxicology tests were performed.

Earlier this month, Coroner Elizabeth K. Balraj said no traces of cyanide or 19 other poisons were found. But evidence of cyanide, she said, unlike arsenic and various other poisons, would have been destroyed by embalming, decomposing and the body's metabolism before death.

Balraj ruled Morris "probably" died of a heart ailment and the case was closed.

"I'm relieved and I'm sick to my stomach," Mary Morris, Terrie's mother, who lives in the Youngstown suburb of Poland, said by telephone yesterday. "He has to pay for the hurt he's done to Diane and my daughter."

Tom Morris, Terrie's brother, and his wife, Donna, were in the courtroom yesterday.

Following the verdict, the jury in an unusual move asked to talk privately with both families. Jurors offered condolences and said they had no trouble with reaching their verdict. Jurors declined to talk to reporters.

Girts was quickly led away by deputies, never making eye contact with his parents and brother.

His lawyers, John S. Pyle and Patrick F. Roche, whisked Girts' family out of the courtroom. "No, this is not a time to talk. I'm sorry," Pyle told reporters.

Assistant County Prosecutors Frank Gasper and Timothy Dobeck based their case on circumstantial evidence, never actually placing the cyanide in Girts' hands.

But it was revealed that on April 5, 1992, Girts requested cyanide from Susan Misconish, a chemist who was also his superior office in the Ohio National Guard.

Misconish testified that Girts told her he needed the poison to kill groundhogs at his home because the rodents were "terrifying" his St. Bernard dog and his cats.

Misconish said she mailed two or three grams of cyanide to the funeral home in care of Girts. She said when she heard Diane died of poisoning, she called a lawyer and went to police.

Testimony during the six-day trial also revealed that Girts was having a long-distance affair with a Mansfield woman, Elizabeth Bethea. About the same time he was requesting the cyanide, he was telling Bethea he was getting a divorce, and that it would be finalized Sept. 16.

Diane died Sept. 2. No divorce was ever filed and the couple signed closing papers on a house they were buying about a week before she died.

"To me, this is a such a heinous crime," prosecutor Gasper said following the verdict. "This is more than a crime of passion. This is diabolical."

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